Philosophical Story Challenge of the Week

So, I’m teaching a class right now in the philosophy of religion (something that I don’t get to do all that often since I’m more of an ethics guy, but I do very much enjoy it). In the first week of this class an interesting question has come up: what is the difference between spirituality and religion? We talk about these sometimes as though they were interchangeable and sometimes as though they were entirely different. Specifically, one of the important questions in this area is this: how are spirituality and religion connected? For instance, is it possible to have a completely unreligious spirituality? Or a completely unspiritual religion?

There are, of course, many perspectives on this, and normally I would go into some detail explaining the major perspectives to you. However, my computer is about to die and I’m not actually near the plug, so I will spare you for today. I do want you to consider this question though: what do we mean when we use the word ‘spiritual’ and what do we mean when we use the word ‘religious’? How can the two concepts be distinguished and how are they connected?

As always, I want you to write a story of 1000 words that presents and defends you answer to this question.